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In addition to the PPE they originally had in CB / PF2 / Dark Conversions, I noticed that DB11:Dyval gave these variations of Dyvalians a 2nd PPE base.

Pg 52:

Fiends and Arch-Fiends are PPE vampires who feed on the psychic energy released by fear, but ultimately need to feast on the PPE of living beings.
Well, living until the Fiend does them in and gorges on the doubled amount of Potential Psychic Energy released at the time of death.
..
Gluttons who can hold vast amounts of PPE (50x their PE attribute number), Fiends drink the life energy released by a kill.

Pg 53:

PPE: 3D4x10

A similar contrast is listed for the Arch-fiend on 68-69 (100xPE then 3D4x10+40)

I'm wondering how to play the functionality of these separate bases. I was thinking upon these house rules to make sense of it...

1) the larger PE-based pools can only be filled by the double PPE released upon a creature's death, and only from living beings (ie the PPE released by killing a vampire would not count) and it doesn't refill normally via meditation/sleep. Unlike a psi-stalker they can't feed on PPE via merely capturing+cutting. Unlike a psi-slayer, they can't feed on PPE merely by torturing/scaring.

2) the lesser pools refill via meditation/sleep. They will only refill from blood sacrifice if the larger PPE is full.

3) spells can be cast using the PPE from either pool, but will always draw on the lower self-regenerating pool first. The PE-based PPE is a backup reserve they can only draw upon when their normal reserve is empty.

4) The NEED to feast is because the PPE from the PE-based pool (not the other one, they can't draw on it) is because these creatures gradually consume the PPE in these pools over time, and when it runs out, bad things begin to happen to them.

Does (4) seem reasonable? The wording "need to feast" sounds like it wouldn't be something they could just optionally do. Unfortunately, we're never actually given a mechanic for what might happen to them.

I was thinking firstly on a rate... even something conservative like 1 PPE per day for Fiends and 2 PPE per day for Arch-Fiends would give them incentive to go out and kill stuff to avoid problems. Even if the PPE running out didn't threaten them, the incentive to do so would be to have as much PPE on hand as possible for casting spells (back-up reserve) in case they ever really need it.

To make them super-murderous, you could make that an HOURLY rate (24 PPE/day for Fiends, 48 PPE/day for Arch-Fiends). Their pools are large enough that they wouldn't need to be constantly killing, but it would mean bigger murder sprees more often to top it off.

We don't have much in the way of PPE vampires for comparison. Night Princes (Dark Conversions 149) need 5 PPE or HP per day, while Night Lords (pg 147) need 20/day. Plus they don't actually have to kill anyone, they could just temporarily drain someone over and over again (much like a Temporal Raider) but stopping short of killing them and letting them heal as a reliable food source.

For that reason I'm thinking 1/day and 2/day might work a little better. This would allow both of them to last 50xPE days without feeding before needing to murder people.

As for the effects of food deprivation, I think I like the Prince/Lord rules: reduce their maximum PPE (they can't replenish it) by 1 per missed meal, and the only way they can get it back is by eating a full meal.

In this case though; you're not reducing the PE-based ones (they're already empty) you're reducing the smaller amounts they originally (and still) have which restore via meditation/sleep like any other spellcaster.

Once that reaches 0, reducing 1 PE/missed meal until it reaches 0 and they die could work. Or if that's too brutal you could reduce MDC (or SDC then HP in other settings) by 1/meal until it reaches 0.

Actually what might be cool is reducing 1 PPE + 1 MDC per missed meal simultaneously.

I say "meal" rather than "day", because if you wanted to make a higher rate than 1/2 PPE per day, you could. If it was, for example, 2/4 PPE per day, then you could divide that into 2 meals of 1/2 PPE, or perhaps do 3 meals of 1/2 PPE to get a requirement of 3/6 per day. The latter would put Arch Fiends slightly above Night Princes in requirements, which sounds about right. 4/8 would also. I don't know about 5/10 though... should Fiends be on par with Night Princes and Arch Fiends on par with Night Lords?

Even if we say a Fiend could tie a Prince, Night Lords generally seem more powerful than Arch Fiends to me, so it sounds off.

Another thing about slain Fiends / Arch Fiends (pg 17 Deevil Rebirth) since powers take 20-80 years to return if mortal-born or might spend 10-40 years in a pupa, they obviously couldn't survive if the PPE needs applied then, so I'd say that their extra PPE pool along with the need to feed on PPE would not return until their full powers did.

This should probably also mean that (pg 11: Abomination) those who have their powers stripped are actually freed of their PPE vampirism requirements.

I don't get the sense that they are seperate pools. Rather they do have the listed base pool, but an hold up to PE*X in extra from kills. That isn't a seperate pool so much as an overage capacity on the same pool. They may well need to do this in a smiliar way to a Psi-Stalker's need to feed on PPE, in which case i'd just adopt the Psi-Stalker Hunger penalties. (not that this implies they have similar sensory powers just a similar need to feed)

I'm not sure what the distinction would be between perceiving it as 2 pools or 1, I usually think of the "above max" temporary PPE storage like a separate pool for mages in general. Just easier book-keeping.

Axelmania wrote:I'm not sure what the distinction would be between perceiving it as 2 pools or 1, I usually think of the "above max" temporary PPE storage like a separate pool for mages in general. Just easier book-keeping.

I think that's my point. There isn't a seperate pool in game terms, a being just *has* PPE, even if some of it is temporary. so while it's convient to track two different PPE pools.

I think the real way to discribe it, is that living things have a "Tank" of PPE, but that tank has has a gasket somewhere on it. Anything below that line is your "permanent" PPE and is what your tank generally fills to naturally after rest and sleep/meditation, but it is possible to take on more PPE than that, which varies by individual and species type, up to a larger cap, but after a certain amount of time this gasket opens and the PPE you've accumulated over the natural maximum leaks out. But it is possible to both make the tank larger and raise the gasket level higher with time and training. ((Which is why some mages get 3d6X10 and others 1d4*10, or whatever, different training methods raise the natural default more or less)).

After all, the book says Mages can store up to a certain mutliplier of PE in PPE for a limited amount of time, but sinse the rate of drawing that PPE is done over time, it also gets let go over that amount of time. Book of Magic says PE in minutes. So if you were drawing, say, 20 PPE a round from a Nexus with a PE of 20, then at 20 minutes only the PPE you absorbed exactly 20 minutes ago disappates, the next minute, another. the book says they can draw continuously, so they can maintain that theoretical cap indefinately as long as they keep drawing as they lose it, but if they leave the nexus, the PPE leaks out rather than vanishes at once.

This is why I say PPE is more of a leaky tank, than two seperate pools. they work more like a leaky tank, and so that's the better analogy. even if you track it on paper in two seperate pools, it is still one pool that's just slowly leaking down until it gets to the level where there is equalibrium.

It seems like the Fiend and Arch-Fiend DO have separate PPE pools in game terms, so having a difference in their function would help explain a purpose in that. They are both hinted at being PPE vampires of a sort without any actual mechanic for it, so having it be fillable only by killing things is a convenient purpose, doubling as the only PPE they could use as a food supply if you do introduce a mechanic of PPE sustenance.

Rifts BOM I think has the PPE multiplier, I think PF Heart of Magic had a different even-briefer thing where it was levelx500 or some weirdness? Will have to re-check that later.